1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer text classification, and more particularly, to a method and system for classifying electronic text messages.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many forms of electronic communications and, in particular, electronic mail (email) communications via the Internet and other communication networks have become abused by certain users, which utilize them for mass distribution of unsolicited messages commonly referred to as “spam”.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,103,372 and 6,212,532 disclose methods for classifying electronic text messages, which are based on searching for key phrases in subject headers of email messages or applying search mechanisms relying on centralized lists of specific text strings, such as trade names, product brands, email's sender addresses, and the like. However, these references address only a few of particular aspects of spam-identifying techniques.
Despite considerable efforts devoted to detection of spam, electronic communications are still vulnerable to many sources of spam of ever-increasing level of sophistication. Therefore, further improvements in techniques for classifying electronic text messages would be desirable.